


you'd be happier instead if you stayed in [my] bed

by ClementineKitten, overwhelmingly_awesome



Series: i'll come back to you [1]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: (there's no actual sex alright), Alcohol, Angst, Drunken Confessions, Emotional Baggage, Frottage, Infidelity, M/M, Making Out, Mild Smut, Pining, Post-Canon, Requited Unrequited Love, Resolution, Sexual Content, porn with feelings: light on the porn and heavy on the feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-16
Updated: 2020-09-16
Packaged: 2021-03-06 23:02:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,391
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26486860
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ClementineKitten/pseuds/ClementineKitten, https://archiveofourown.org/users/overwhelmingly_awesome/pseuds/overwhelmingly_awesome
Summary: Iwaizumi is living his best life. He's happy at his job, he lives in his own house, and he's recently engaged to his now fiancée, whom he's been with for numerous years. Everything's going great.Except for the fact that it's not.(In which Iwaizumi finds himself at the house of his best friend, who's drinking himself into a coma in the middle of the night, and more happens than maybe it ought to.)
Relationships: Iwaizumi Hajime/Oikawa Tooru
Series: i'll come back to you [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1976464
Comments: 60
Kudos: 172
Collections: kagsivity's fic archive





	you'd be happier instead if you stayed in [my] bed

**Author's Note:**

> made in collaboration with the darling @overwhelmingly_awesome. she came up with the scenario, wrote the dialogue and the stage directions, and i wrote the prose!  
> well, there's one (1) line of dialogue i added, but that's besides the point  
> title is a lyric from worst case scenario by the hoosiers. enjoy!

Iwaizumi is actually kind of surprised when the door opens.

He hadn’t been expecting much -- he doesn’t know if he was supposed to be -- but he’s shocked nonetheless. He, however, only manages to catch a glimpse of Oikawa’s mussed-up face before the door slams shut over it and he’s left contesting with the wood again.

“Oikawa? Open up, this isn’t funny.” He knocks again, adding emphasis to his words with each bang.

“I thought you were someone else,” answers the voice beyond the door.

“...Okay, I’m not them. Now _let me in_.” The assertiveness, while not foreign on his tongue, makes a distinct discomfort spread through his chest. Especially in this scenario. Especially because it’s Oikawa whom he’s speaking to.

“Or what, you’ll huff and you’ll puff?” sneers Oikawa. “Big bad wolf Iwa-- _Iwaizumi._ ”

Iwaizumi rolls his eyes. He’s been petulant about the epithet since the first time he met Eri, when she furrowed her brow and made an off-the-cuff remark about how she thought the two of them had long since grown out of that cutesy a nickname. It settles, dourly, in Iwaizumi’s ears.

“Cut it out, Shittykawa.”

“Why are you even here?” Oikawa responds quickly, not even taking the time to whine about _his_ nickname. 

_You know why._

Iwaizumi’s fist slides down the cool door, and he leans in further, resting his forehead on it. “Makki said you were upset,” he says after gathering his thoughts. “And that you were drinking yourself into a coma.”

A moment of stillness fills the stagnant nighttime air.

“And why do you care?”

What a ludicrous question -- what a selfish question, Iwaizumi thinks to himself. He doesn’t have any right to be so up in arms with him, and yet, this is what they’ve come to. He’s always been dramatic, but Iwaizumi can’t wait for the curtain call. “Why-- come _on,_ just open the door. You’re acting like a child.”

“Oh, and you’re so mature?” Iwaizumi doesn’t need to see his face to hear the incredulity dripping from his words. “You’re so grown up, with your job, and your _fiancée_ \--”

Therein lies the rub.

“Shut up, Oikawa, let me in,” he demands.

“No. I don’t want to see you. Go away.” Oikawa seems flippant, but Iwaizumi isn’t one to fold. Even so, irritation erodes his patience for the man who’s supposed to be the closest to him.

“You’re being ridiculous,” Iwaizumi tells him.

Oikawa says nothing, and the silence permeates. Iwaizumi feels like an idiot, standing here in the dark, the cold breeze chilling him less than his friend’s icy disposition. He shudders beneath his jacket. “What’s wrong?” he continues, a little softer this time.

“Nothing’s wrong,” comes the all too quick reply.

“Oh?” Iwaizumi says, not buying that for a moment. “So you’re just getting wasted, all alone in your apartment, and making your best friend stand outside and yell at a door? That’s _normal_ to you?” he hisses, venomous.

Again, no response.

Then he hears rustling from inside the house. The lock slides open and Iwaizumi, leaning on the door, stumbles a little on his feet as it tentatively creaks open.

Oikawa stands -- well, slumps, before him, shoulder against the doorframe. He’s in a sweater too big for him, wearing it about as well he does his demure expression, hanging disparately off of him. He looks like shit. His hair is a wreck, pointing up at odd angles and swept hastily across his forehead, his eyes are as dark as the bags under them, and his face is flushed red. Whether that be from the alcohol or from crying, Iwaizumi can’t tell. His lights aren’t on, but he can see the faint glow of a lamp somewhere behind him.

He looks exhausted. Iwaizumi’s heart squeezes.

“Shouldn’t your _wife_ be your best friend?” he asks mildly.

Iwaizumi certainly wasn’t expecting that reply. “I-- I don’t know.”

That’s why he was here.

Because Eri had looked up at him, with her pale, milquetoast eyes, so different from the ones in front of him now, and asked what was wrong. If he was feeling alright. If there was anything she could do to help him. They had been in _bed,_ for God’s sake, Eri’s head had been on his chest, and all that was pinging around in his mind was Oikawa. Makki’s distressed message. His off behaviour. Irritation notwithstanding, they had known each other since childhood. They could be on other ends of the Earth, they could be in different countries like they had been until very recently, and Iwaizumi would still be hard-pressed to sit idly by as Oikawa Tooru destroyed himself.

He promised himself he would never let that happen. Never again.

The woman he pledged to _marry_ is alone at two in the morning because he’s here with Oikawa.

The man regards him.

Then he dips, opening the door further, and signalling Iwaizumi to come in. The dark room swallows the both of them as Iwaizumi gingerly steps inside; it reeks of booze and his face scrunches up in spite of himself. He toes off his shoes as efficiently as he can, shedding his jacket.

“You look better than I thought you would,” Iwaizumi offers.

“I always look beautiful,” Oikawa hums airly, flipping his hand as he leads them to a couch. “You should know that by now.”

“You still look like shit,” Iwaizumi corrects, “I just expected you to look worse.”

“Thank you, _Iwaizumi._ " He settles down near the arm of his loveseat and pats the space next to him. As Iwaizumi complies, he strangles the neck of a bottle on the table next to him. “Drink?” he asks.

Iwaizumi screws up his nose. “No, one of us should be sober.”

“Then I’ll drink enough for the both of us,” Oikawa slurs. He lets go of the bottle and instead wraps his hand around a glass, which he brings to his lips. “Cheers.”

Just as he tips his head back, Iwaizumi seizes his wrist and wrestles the glass away from him. Oikawa glares at him, pouting, as he sets the glass on the end table on the other side of the couch. “No, I think you’ve had enough. I came here to make sure you weren’t choking on your own vomit, I’m not going to watch you make it worse.”

“You’re no fun.” Oikawa yanks his wrist away. “Besides, that’s a perfectly glamourous way to die, plenty of rockstars have done it. Don’t I deserve a rockstar death, _Iwaizumi?_ ”

The puffiness underneath his eyes betrays his lackadaisical remarks about mortality. It makes Iwaizumi angry, his carelessness and self-centredness, but even more so, it awakens a lake of sadness within him, the sorrowful water of which splashes and sloshes around inside his heart. “You’re in your twenties, Oikawa, you shouldn’t be planning your death.”

Oikawa looks at his feet. “Mm,” he huffs. “Fine.”

He crosses his arms as Iwaizumi edges a little closer. “And why do you keep saying my name like that?”

“Like what? _Iwaizumi._ ” It’s as if he’s spitting poison. “It’s your name. Am I pronouncing it wrong or something?” His lip curls. “I suppose it's been a while since I've said the full thing, I wouldn't be shocked if I messed up an emphasis or two.”

“That’s the point!” Iwaizumi shouts, exasperated, on the brink of realization. “You haven’t called me Iwaizumi since we met. Something’s wrong.” Oikawa snorts.

“Nothing’s _wrong,_ you just grew out of the nickname. You’re an _adult._ You have a _job_ , a _fiancée_." He’s still not looking at him. “You pay _taxes._ "

“Are you not paying taxes?”

That causes a flicker. He glances up, meeting Iwaizumi’s gaze momentarily. “I pay taxes.”

Iwaizumi fishes in his mind, looking for any way to keep this reluctant conversation going. “Besides,” Oikawa starts, continuing it in his stead, “you hated being called Iwa-chan.” Even without eye contact, the reproach is palpable. “Isn’t this better?”

“It’s weird,” Iwaizumi says honestly.

Oikawa smiles bitterly. “Would you prefer I called you _Hajime?_ "

“Cut it out.”

Tension wreathes around his prickling skin. The air, the dusky, dark air, is oppressive around them. Iwaizumi is, despite his better efforts, having trouble breathing with the scent of alcohol in his nose and lungs. With Oikawa’s warm decorative and aesthetic sense, combined with the low light, he would call the atmosphere comfortable, if it were in any other context than this.

“You said you were expecting someone,” Iwaizumi tests. “Who else is coming over?”

“Refreshing-kun.”

“Sugawara?”

Oikawa leans back a little, appearing to lose a little strain in his upper body. “Mhmmmm,” he drawls, despondent. 

Iwaizumi looks across at a framed photo he can’t make out. “I thought it might be that guy… Taka-something.”

“Oh.” Oikawa sighs. “Definitely not.”

“No?” That’s news to Iwaizumi, though, he realizes with a pang, he would have had no way of finding out -- Oikawa had been avoiding him. “I thought you guys were…”

Something? Nothing? _Anything?_

“Serious.”

“Of course not.” Oikawa kicks his bare feet. “I don’t _do_ serious.”

His tone is morose in a way Iwaizumi can’t word. “He fucked me for a while, then I messed up and he stopped.” He wraps it up with such simplicity that Iwaizumi would laugh, it weren’t clear just how deeply and tightly the strings of fate were bound, cutting into the marionette sitting beside him..

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

“It’s fine,” Oikawa insists. “I’m glad it’s over.”

“Is that why--” Iwaizumi cuts himself off to indicate the glasses and Oikawa himself. “Is that why you’re like this?”

Oikawa’s dry laugh shakes his shoulders -- the defeat rattles in him. “You think I drank myself into a stupor over some guy I slept with? You should know me better than that, Iwa-chan.”

“Are we back to calling me that?”

Finally, his gaze is held for more than a brief second. Oikawa looks through him, brilliant brown eyes turned a haunting shadow of what they once were. “It slipped out.”

Iwaizumi stares dumbly back.

“How’s Eri?” Oikawa alleviates the static by asking about the elephant in the room. Now, it’s Iwaizumi who can hardly bear to keep eye contact. His attention falls, momentarily, to the end of Oikawa’s sweater, flared over a pair of track pants, before he drags it back up to his face.

“She’s fine.”

Oikawa raises his eyebrows. “Just fine?” He smirks mean-spiritedly. “Trouble in paradise?”

Struck, Iwaizumi bristles. “I’m not giving myself alcohol poisoning, so I’d say I’m doing the best out of the two people on this couch.”

Oikawa brings up his legs onto the cushion, getting into a more curled up position. He props up an elbow on the back of the loveseat, resting his cheek on a bored fist. Iwaizumi had wanted him to pay attention, to face him and speak to him like a real person, but now that he has that, he feels strangely cornered.

“Why so defensive, hmm?” Oikawa challenges. “I’m just curious. Come on, spill the details.”

Iwaizumi taps on the seam of his jean, at the crook of his knee. “I met her parents yesterday.”

Oikawa’s skepticism manifests in his grimace. “You got engaged without meeting her _parents?_ "

“They live on the other side of the world!” Iwaizumi retorts, a touch too flustered. “I’ve spoken to them before, I’ve just never met them in person.”

Oikawa doesn’t appear to be taken aback by his outburst. If anything, his eyelids flutter half-closed, unimpressed. “Are they as boring as she is?”

" _Oikawa._ "

He holds up his free hand in mercy. “What? You have to imagine she got it from somewhere.”

It starts to build.

“They were fine.”

“They were boring,” Oikawa appends, “I _knew_ it!”

If he’s satisfied with the perceived discontent his friend is experiencing in his engagement, it doesn’t appear to be earnest. His face is twisted in a caricature of satiation, the shadows on his face cast by the lamp behind him making his countenance greedy, crude, _monstrous._ As if he derives pleasure from Iwaizumi’s unhappiness.

“There’s nothing wrong with boring,” Iwaizumi admits. He taps and taps.

“Of course not,” Oikawa exclaims, histrionic. “I’d _kill_ for a little monotony every once in a while. But I know you, _Iwaizumi,_ you saw them being so quiet and peaceful, and it made your hands all twitchy.” Iwaizumi can’t tell if he’s actually leaning in closer, or if his frustration is causing him to hallucinate in the darkness. Oikawa continues his unrelenting attack. “You saw you and Eri in thirty years, in a nice little house, with nice little children, and nice little jobs, and it made you want to _throw up_.”

He taps. It builds, still.

“You don’t know shit, Oikawa.”

“I know everything about you,” objects Oikawa. He lifts his cheek off his hand, and instead uses the appendage to point an accusing finger at Iwaizumi. He darkens, and darkens some more. “I know how much being with her makes you bored, I can see it all over your face. Remember when I caught you guys out on that date at the diner?” He scoffs. “You looked miserable!”

Tapping. Building.

Iwaizumi feels it rising, hot and sick like boiling water, submerging his organs, killing him from the inside.

“Shut _up,_ Oikawa,” he seethes, “I came to see what was wrong with you, not to get my relationship _psychoanalyzed_."

“It’s true, isn’t it?” No; he’s definitely closer than he once was. Iwaizumi could raise a couple sheets to the wind off the alcohol content of his breath alone. “Things aren’t as perfect as they seem with Little Miss Teacher-chan--” presently, he inhales sharply “--and you’re _bored._ "

There’s no more to build. 

The foundation breaks, everything contained within him spills over -- rage, disenchantment, dissatisfaction, and wells in an ugly, bubbling puddle beneath their feet.

“Fuck you, Oikawa, I’m not about to take relationship advice from someone who can’t even sleep with someone without _fucking it up._ ” He sweeps into a standing position, unable to get off of the couch fast enough. His hands tighten to fists, white-knuckled and furious -- he’s no stranger to punching Oikawa, and his smug face could use some knocking off. “Did you do this with that last _catch_ of yours?” he snaps, voice shaking, towering over the man, who looks small and compact and like he really is -- pitiful, alone, and drunk out of his goddamn mind. “Dug your claws into something he didn’t want to talk about until he kicked you out?”

It’s only in the aftermath, through his trembling, angry breaths in that quiet, quiet house, that he realizes just what he said -- and just to whom he said it. The liquid on the floor evaporates into a clammy, humid mist that fogs his mind and makes the rims of his eyes burn.

Oikawa crosses his arms again, sets his face, and leans into the plush. “Christ, Iwaizumi.”

“I’m sorry.” Iwaizumi allows his fingers to uncurl. “I shouldn’t have said that.”

Mollified (Iwaizumi doesn’t know if it was the shouting or the depressant that did it to him), Oikawa gazes up at him. There’s hurt beyond that uncaring expression -- Iwaizumi can tell in the dark. He could tell from thousands of miles apart. “I’m not going to keep you from speaking your mind.” His words quiver. “You make a good point.”

“No, I--”

“I’ve done that before.” Oikawa shrugs. “I’m sure you knew that. That’s _usually_ what happens. But this time was a little different.”

Iwaizumi waits for him to go on, but he doesn’t seem all too keen. After a couple heartbeats of deliberation, he stiffly returns to his spot on the couch, sitting as far away from Oikawa as he can physically manage.

“You wanna know what I did to make him leave me?” Oikawa continues, reticent. Iwaizumi nods. “Fine. I said someone else’s name when I came, and he told me to leave.”

That hangs. The words don’t really register in Iwaizumi’s head.

“Not my best moment, I’ll admit.”

“You _what?_ "

“You know, you might have a point.” Oikawa ignores his disbelief. “I manage to fuck up the one thing I’m good at.”

Iwaizumi turns toward him. “No, listen--”

“No, no, you’re right!” Tired, fed-up, and coming apart at his own seams, Oikawa finally relents and unravels. The walls shudder as he yells. “I haven’t had a serious relationship in years, I’ve only been able to convince a few people to _bed me_ until I’m distracted from everything else that’s shitty, but I managed to fuck it up!” Eyes wide, words full of mirth, Oikawa’s arms droop from where he had thrown them up theatrically, and his head falls pathetically.

The room holds its breath.

“I’m sorry,” Iwaizumi murmurs, because he has nothing else which he could say.

Oikawa runs his hand through his bangs, pushing them out of his eyes. He even looks a little more sober than when Iwaizumi first arrived. “I’m sorry, too,” he replies, appearing to be a little lighter having gotten that out. “I shouldn’t have... talked about her, like that.”

“It wasn’t enough to warrant what I said.”

Oikawa frowns. “It was pretty mean, Iwa-chan,” he reminds him.

“I’m sorry,” Iwaizumi repeats. Oikawa purses his lips.

“Stop saying that so much,” he complains. “I suppose we’re both good at saying things we regret.”

He plays with his glass, which is filled three quarters of the way with rich brown whiskey, if the bottle beside it is anything to go by. His fingertip traces the rim dully, and Iwaizumi grips his knees with great interest.

“Are things with Eri really that bad?” Oikawa questions. “I thought you two were the pinnacle of healthy heterosexual relationships.”

Is it really that bad?

Eri is a good woman, much less volatile than what he’s currently dealing with, but at the same time -- though he hates to admit it -- not as interesting. He doesn’t hold that against her, not in the slightest, in fact, he appreciates it. She’s kind, she’s hard-working, she enjoys what she does and seeks pleasure in a calm, gentle life.

She’s good with kids, too, due to her profession.

Thinking of that fact right now, though, makes him nauseated.

He has no reason to be unhappy with his circumstances. A lot of men probably dreamed of this, so what the Hell is up with his compounding internal conflict?

“I came here to solve your crisis, not to tell you about my marital problems.”

Of which there exists _none_ \-- that’s the issue in and of itself.

“You’re not married yet,” Oikawa mumbles, testing his grip strength on the glass. Iwaizumi watches him carefully. “And my problems aren’t solvable. Not right now, at least.”

What is Iwaizumi even doing here? What did he hope to accomplish? Oikawa is an impossible puzzle, filled with pieces touting serrated edges, armoured to protect him. He was diligent, steadfast, and the very fucking definition of a perfectionist. He had built his personality, his empire, his career, around his annoying tendency toward lack of satisfaction. He got wrapped up in his own hype, he dressed in his inferiority, but by God, was he the most brilliantly determined person Iwaizumi had ever met. He shouldn’t have thought this would be easy, and sitting here, now, like this, he feels like a complete fool.

“It’s two in the fucking morning,” he reasons.

“Mmhmm.”

Oikawa rolls his neck to look at him. Hazy in his torpor, he fiddles with his sleeve, absorbed in his concentration.

“Am I right, though? That it’s boring?” he asks, uncharacteristically meek. He looks askance. “I never could have imagined you with a girl like her.”

“I could. Imagine a girl like her, I mean,” Iwaizumi clarifies. Oikawa eyes him disinterestedly, not even bothering to hide it. “She’s stable. She’s calm. She’s nice.” 

_She’s the opposite of you._

This thought comes to him, and he doesn’t know why.

“That’s all you can ask for, really.”

_Then why do I feel like this?_

“She sounds like a dog,” Oikawa responds. “Does she shed?”

Iwaizumi can’t help but crack a smile. “I want to have a good response to that, but her long hair gets _everywhere._ It reminds me of when you and I shared an apartment.”

“Ha!” Oikawa snickers. “It was a _privilege_ to have my hair grace your laundry.”

For a heartbeat, everything is back to normal. They’re sitting on the couch, laughing about their pasts and their misgivings. But like all things, it ends. The fleeting moment escapes Iwaizumi’s hands like grains of sand through his fingers, leaving him before he had the chance to know it.

“At least she doesn’t say someone else’s name when she comes,” Oikawa reckons quietly.

Iwaizumi sighs. “Yeah. I don’t even know what I’d do in that situation.”

“He practically threw me off the bed.” Oikawa rubs his neck -- an apparent casualty. “It _hurt._ "

“He shouldn’t have done that.”

“Eh, I deserved it.”

Oikawa had slept around with a couple of people since his high school days -- Iwaizumi didn’t judge him for it, nor did he find it that out of character. Different strokes for different folks, like his parents had told him. It was never something that Iwaizumi himself could picture _himself_ doing. That type of intimacy, that physical proximity to another person, he doesn’t think he could manage without the emotional foundation to back it up.

If it was what made Oikawa happy, that was fine.

But there was a point where Iwaizumi, who knew Oikawa perhaps better than he knew his own fiancée, realized something else was lying, maybe dormant but maybe not, below the surface. That he was simply trying to feel _something_ with each stranger he took to his bed. That’s why, whenever things started to get prolonged and delved into serious territory, something happens -- Oikawa blocks him, or he moves, or he screams someone else’s name.

And goddamn, it _hurts,_ it goes straight to Iwaizumi’s chest, seeing him ruin himself in a caricature of happiness.

“How do you even explain something like that?” Iwaizumi whispers, a little to himself.

“I didn’t even try,” Oikawa admits. “Could you imagine?” He puts on a face. " _Sorry I said my best friend’s name while you were fucking me, I’ve got shit I need to work out._ "

The ball drops, loud and cataclysmic. 

Iwaizumi blinks. Then he blinks again. He looks at Oikawa, _really_ looks at him, as the words take root, spread and grow, flower in his tired, tortured mind.

Oikawa has nothing left for him. He lifts his chin in a challenge.

“What?”

His face, hardened, twitches a little. “Oh, come on, Iwa-chan, you’re smart enough to have guessed by this point.” He breathes in -- Iwaizumi can see his chest heave with the effort. “Who _else?_ ”

Mouth open but with nothing to say, Iwaizumi gapes.

“I told you. My problems aren’t solvable right now.”

It hits all at once, like a tsunami, crashing over him, ravenously and indiscriminately, soaking him in the cold, black water of realization. It clicks, it pieces together, it falls into place, it does whatever the Hell else metaphor in his brain. Oikawa’s shaking his glass again, watching the way the liquid churns.

_Oikawa’s drinking himself to death because he wants to have sex with me._

He runs cold, like the wave that’s just destroyed his shore. Then he gets hot, like the flush that tears across his cheeks with record speed, and his body flickers between these diametric oppositions, chilled and sweating like he’s come down with the flu.

The only thing he’s sick with his the anxiety that had been building, and building, and building…

The man in front of him just admitted he wanted to fuck him. That, Iwaizumi knows. The man he grew up with, spent hours and hours with, trained with and played with and goofed off with, loved and appreciated, protected and watched over, because dammit, _someone_ had to, just told him he said his name in bed with his newest stint.

_Oikawa was thinking about having sex with me while he was having sex with someone else._

_Oikawa was thinking about having sex with me_ because _he was having sex with someone else._

Overwhelmed, Iwaizumi can hardly force any words out. “I’m engaged,” is what his brain is able to settle on.

“You think I don’t know that?” Oikawa regards him with contempt.

Pulse louder than the ensuing silence in his ears, Iwaizumi looks everywhere but Oikawa. “I…” He flounders, seeking an impossible reply. “You-- you want--”

Façade crumbling, Oikawa puts his hands on his thighs and grips them, just to do something with his hands. “You’re struggling here.” He sounds strangled, distant in Iwaizumi’s racing thoughts. “I assumed you knew about my feelings.”

Iwaizumi blanches. “I didn’t.”

“Yes you did,” Oikawa replies easily enough. “You’ve always known I was gay. I’ve trailed after you like a puppy since before school even started.”

There’s pain there, in those simple sentences. Struggling to keep his mouth a flat line, Oikawa stares.

“I’ve always felt this way.”

Undoing, Iwaizumi keeps himself from completely exploding. “Why didn’t you _tell_ me?” he demands, his better judgement waning and on the verge of becoming nonexistent. 

“I thought you knew!” Oikawa shouts. “Besides, it doesn’t matter.”

Jumbled, incoherent, but assuredly present, beside Oikawa, Iwaizumi yells.

“It _doesn’t matter?!_ "

“Like you said,” Oikawa hisses, “you’re engaged. You’re going to get married. You don’t even like men.” He says this through his teeth. “I was never an option, so I never treated _you_ like an option.

In the blink of an eye, Oikawa disappears. Or, rather, he changes.

Instead of an inebriated man, holding back his tears and frustrations and misgivings, washing away that which he yearns so deeply for away with whiskey, he sits before a boy with a twisted knee, letting the tears run down his agonized face in rivers, shaking fingers pressed to his skin as if it would allay the pain. Sobs wracking him to his very core, Iwaizumi does his best to fashion a splint, wipe away his shame and warped effort with a clean washcloth he holds with unprecedented tenderness against his cheek.

He’s before a kid, alone in his struggles, dumb and reckless and passionate, forced to pay the price for his determination.

Someone who needs him. Someone who he has to protect. Someone who’s overdramatic, a diva, and a bit too airheaded for his own good, but unrelentingly zealous -- skilled and talented and clawing his way to the top in any way he can. Digging his own footholds, scrambling higher and higher, all through adversity and injuries and setbacks.

He was prepared to destroy himself for the sake of his ambition.

Someone had to watch out for him, and that someone was Iwaizumi.

That rings true now.

Oikawa had said he was the one trailing after Iwaizumi, but he thinks it’s the opposite, really; he had Oikawa’s back, no matter what. He was looking to him, always.

_I said my best friend’s name while you were fucking me._

Iwaizumi aches, and aches, and aches.

“You don’t know everything that goes on in my head, Oikawa,” he says slowly, “no matter how much you _think_ you do.”

His heavy words sink, denser even then the stiff air around them.

“Alright, I’m sorry for telling you.” Oikawa grasps at his elbows. “We can chalk this one up under 'things Tooru said while under the influence that we can nobody heard,’” he says, fond of his air quotes here, “and get back to me choking on my own vomit, hmmm?” He bats his eyelashes.

Maybe Iwaizumi should have taken him up on his drink offer.

“You said my name while someone else was fucking you.” He says this, cementing it in reality.

“Yeah.”

“Why?”

“We’ve established this.”

“Why?”

Oikawa grits his teeth impatiently, pulling his fingers through his hair again. “Because I’ve got shit to work out,” he sighs, “and I’m not good with _feelings._ "

" _Why?_ "

It’s a desperate, desperate plead, a call, a beg for Oikawa to answer.

Until right now, Iwaizumi had resigned to his life of domestic simplicity alongside Eri. Yes! Oikawa was right! She was boring! But she was _safe,_ and she was _kind,_ and she asked him out first, and what the Hell was he supposed to do?

It’s just like Oikawa, to assume he knows everything that’s going on in his head. To say that he had never been an option for Iwaizumi to peruse. To act as if he hasn’t been rocked to his basest of thoughts and instincts, broken and built back up by this revelation.

His mind plays through memories. Skips and replays. Records and scans. Looking for signs, reevaluating every second spent by his side in face of this new information. Oikawa wanted to have sex with him. Oikawa _wants_ to have sex with him, and he’s wearing an engagement ring to signify his spiral into a life of… of… of _boredom,_ and of complacency, and of chances never taken and of opportunities missed because Iwaizumi was too dense to realize that Oikawa wanted _him._

There was a point, in their youth, where they stopped holding hands. When they grew out of _being able_ to hold hands, and Iwaizumi had craved that touch. He craved it at 13 as he craved it at 18 as he craved it now, and he’s finally starting to realize, with a horror that makes his stomach curl as much as it brings a pleasant fire into his chest, why that was.

Maybe he was interested, too. Far more interested than he had the right to be.

Oikawa’s collarbones protrude from where his sweater falls, the neck of it deep and plunging. Iwaizumi notices it at this exact moment, just as he notices the pinkness of his lips, just as he notices how his half-lidded gaze is perhaps abetted by something other than his exhaustion.

“Because I’d like it better…” Oikawa swipes his tongue over those lips, angling the slightest bit closer. “...if you were the one fucking me.”

Iwaizumi, mesmerized by the action, is compelled into a similar movement.

“Okay.”

His heartbeat is the room’s heart, the loudest sound he can remember hearing, making the walls pulse and sending blood through veins that cause the very couch they’re perched upon to run a scorching hot that would burn him, had he had the attention span to pay it much mind. His lungs are the room’s lungs, taking haggard, pulling breaths that incite the excited air, stealing away the oxygen that thins as he stares at Oikawa.

His eyes are the room’s eyes, watching what must surely be a sin -- for an engaged man to desire another whom he is not to wed, with shame and want, he was to be damned.

His flaw, his forbidden fruit, his best friend, looks back.

Spurned by his anger, his frustration, his _worry,_ Iwaizumi tackles Oikawa. The latter’s head hits the arm of the loveseat with a dull thump, and Iwaizumi grips the sides of his face with hunger, with intent, with all his malcontent and anxiety, and parts his lips with an eager tongue.

Oikawa fits all too well beneath him, as if this had been the only place he was meant to be. Where Eri had been soft, willowy, gentle, Oikawa’s form is solid, and his fingers immediately find themselves scrabbling at the back of his neck. He tastes of disappointment and tension and whiskey, but it doesn’t particularly matter what his mouth tastes like, only that Iwaizumi’s tongue is inside it. He’s hot, breathy, smirking into him as he bends his leg, forcing his knee between Iwaizumi’s thighs.

Iwaizumi goes in hard enough he’s sure those pink lips are going to be black and blue, but Oikawa doesn’t fight against the pressure, and instead weakens into it -- this is more aggressive already than he’s ever been with Eri, more aggressive than he ever would have _dreamt_ of being with her, and they’ve only just started. Heat mixes with exhilaration in his roiling stomach, and he exhales, warm and wet, against Oikawa’s mouth. He bites at his lower lip, and Oikawa vocalizes with a quiet whine that echoes, again and again, in his ears.

“Iwa-chan _,_ ” Oikawa whimpers, needy and tempting.

" _Shut up,_ " Iwaizumi growls, his lips grazing Oikawa’s as he speaks. Glazed eyes blink back affectionately. 

“You know what?” Oikawa breathes. “Okay.”

His hands find the bottom of Iwaizumi’s shirt and slide up it, pulling himself up and resting against the couch’s arm in a different position. Iwaizumi almost cries out as nails embed themselves in his back, in surprise more than anything, but that would be giving Oikawa what he wanted. Instead he puts his mouth to Oikawa’s jaw, where he kisses purple down his flushed skin. Oikawa holds back a moan as Iwaizumi works his way down his throat. His pulse is rapid under his touch, and his chest heaves.

Taking after Oikawa, Iwaizumi’s hands run up his side beneath his sweater. He holds him down tightly, straddling his hips as Oikawa claws his mark deep in his skin. Iwaizumi draws his tongue over his collarbone, nipping at the tender skin there. His hands move up higher, and higher, until he has to move back, leaving a trail of saliva in his wake as he pulls off Oikawa’s sweater and tosses it into oblivion.

“I didn’t know,” Iwaizumi exhales. With Oikawa’s exposed torso beneath him, his fingers tease the well-defined muscles, wondrous, yearning, and _really_ fucking turned on. He takes a nail across his pectorals.

“ _Clearly._ That’s not on me, though.” Similarly, Oikawa takes this brief break to tear off Iwaizumi’s shirt. He hardly mourns its loss. “You’re just dense.” Hands against his own chest now, Iwaizumi shudders.

He leans back down and steals away those words from the dirty mouth that uttered them. Oikawa groans into him. " _Mean,_ Shittykawa,” he responds, roughly, the tips of their noses touching.

“Really? Shittykawa? While you’re humping my leg?” Laughter puffs against Iwaizumi’s lips, and the things Iwaizumi wants to do to him right then almost drive him mad. He’s going to ruin him, just like he’s ruined Iwaizumi.

“Would you prefer Tooru?” he teases, sultry.

“I would, actually.” Hands go from his chest to his neck, slowly and deliberately. There they tighten, the slightest bit, and Iwaizumi’s throat catches. “It’s hot when you say it.”

Iwaizumi is unbelievably angry. With himself, with Oikawa, with the hand he’s been dealt, but most notably, that they could have been doing this for years, and they haven’t been. That he’s been with Eri. That Oikawa has been drinking himself silly. That this is the most alive he’s felt in a while.

He slides off the couch, down on his knees, Oikawa facing him. He pulls Oikawa’s legs around himself, and he locks them into place. Kissing him desperately as they rise, Oikawa’s fingernails once more find respite in his traps, his tongue, at home in Iwaizumi's mouth. He realizes that, despite being a man of his stature, Oikawa is quite light. Is he eating enough? Has he been taking care of himself?

 _Fuck,_ he's hard -- Iwaizumi feels it against his stomach. His thoughts wander dangerously to what he could do to help with that. If he wants it rough or not. Iwaizumi can do rough. 

"What were you thinking about?" he asks, all in one breath. Oikawa pulls at his hair.

"Hmmm?" Oikawa mumbles, hazy, by his ear.

“What were you thinking about,” Iwaizumi elaborates, gulping, “when you said my name?”

Oikawa bites his earlobe, his voice deep and rumbling, straight to Iwaizumi’s being. “I was thinking about that little boring fiancée of yours, and how she gets to have you fuck her.” He whispers this, and the thrill of pleasure that thrums through Iwaizumi threatens to snap him in twain. “I bet it’s perfectly mundane.” Kisses trail down his jawline. “I bet you both have missionary sex for a while, until you both come and go to sleep.”

“Fuck off.” Somehow, they’ve come to the entrance to Oikawa’s room. Iwaizumi presses him against the doorframe, and Oikawa reorients his legs around his middle, squeezing him tightly. 

“Then, I thought about what it would be like to have you fuck _me_ instead.” He rests his warm cheek against Iwaizumi’s head as the man steals kisses down his throat. The skin there is soft, untouched by regular daily activities, reddened and bruised by Iwaizumi’s hungry teeth. “I’d let you do anything you want.” Nails up and down his biceps. “You could bend me over whatever you’d like and take me until I couldn’t walk anymore,” he promises, the deep, slow tone he affects leaving Iwaizumi stirred and wanting.

Oikawa pulls his hair, _hard._ " _Shit,_ " he curses to the masterpiece he’s painting over the man’s body.

“I’ve been told I sound pretty in bed, Iwa-chan.” Iwaizumi swings him around and starts into the bedroom. “I thought about moaning your name all quiet, like I bet she does,” he hums, breathy, “or saying whatever you’d like to hear, keep talking while you fuck me.” He tastes Iwaizumi, over and over, palms now on his cheeks, nails just at his jaw. “I’ve got a talented tongue. But I’ve always been a big fan of _screaming._ ”

Iwaizumi throws Oikawa down on his bed, and he undoes. His hair, unruly, looks almost perfectly messy against his white sheets, and his arms collapse. His track pants hang agonizingly low on his hips, it would be so easy to just _take them off,_ but his face is what ends Iwaizumi. Cheeks ruddy, sweat forming as he breathes shallowly, eyes agleam and voracious with arousal. He’s defenseless, vulnerable, so enticing, lying there, knowing exactly what he’s doing.

He’s giving Iwaizumi all of him.

And he’s about to accept.

“Or -- this is one of my favourite things to think about -- riding you into the mattress until all you can think about is what it feels like inside me, under me, until all you can say,” he continues, pulling Iwaizumi down to him and pressing his knee right up against his inner thigh, “is my name.”

 _Fuck, Tooru._ Oikawa sucks and steals wet, needy kisses, desperate. He kisses Iwaizumi like he’ll leave at any moment, like the world is about to disappear around them. Things go far too fast and far too slow, all at once, and Iwaizumi’s self control -- if there was any left -- wanes.

“Good thoughts,” he heaves.

“Eloquently put, Iwa-chan.”

“You’re drunk, and panting like a dog.” Iwaizumi splays a hand across Oikawa’s slicked chest. “How the _fuck_ do you sound so composed?”

“I’m well practiced.” Oikawa traces his thumb over Iwaizumi’s bottom lip. “I can train you, if you'd like. Make you read a sonnet or something while we fuck.”

Iwaizumi rests his hands on the edge of Oikawa’s pants. “I’ll leave the talking to you, actually.”

“Sounds good to me.”

He tears down the track pants, exposing a pair of pronounced dark boxers, and casts them off. He pins one wrist hard to the bed, forcing him down into the sheets. With his other hand, he fingers the elastic band of his lover’s boxers, making his way down, where he palms at Oikawa’s dick through the distractingly thin fabric. There, he pauses.

“Iwa,” Oikawa moans, squirming under him. He bites his own lip, shining eyes looking up, hot and frustrated, a gorgeous sight streaked with crimsons. “Iwa, _please--_ ”

“How long?”

Iwaizumi grips the band. 

“What?” he whines.

“How long have you known?”

“That I liked you like this? Forever.”

" _Fuck._ "

Fueled by repressed desire, lingering touches, his own disillusionment, Iwaizumi grabs ahold of his destiny and rips off the boxers. They crumple, unneeded, on the floor, as Iwaizumi beholds the man before him, poised, ready, and probably more prepared than Iwaizumi could ever hope to be in this situation. In spite of himself, he freezes, blood pumping everywhere that’s important. His whole body beats with pleasure and passion, and his throat closes up, sealed by the heat that surges to his mouth.

_Fuck, we’re doing this._

Oikawa pants under him, arms outstretched, eager to take all of him.

Iwaizumi throws himself into Oikawa with reckless and selfish abandon, desperate to feel every inch of skin on him. His chest swells and he kisses him madly, rough, with more emotion than he could ever dream of voicing. Every part of Oikawa, he tries to own, and he moans, as loud and as pretty as he had promised, into his mouth.

Oikawa fumbles for Iwaizumi’s jeans from where he sits, essentially on his lap. He groans with the pressure and finally manages to undo the button, tugging them down. Iwaizumi slides off the man and drops them himself, only one layer of cloth between them and complete, world-ending vulnerability. 

They breathe, their ardor one.

Iwaizumi presses his hand to Oikawa’s mouth, and he bites at the webbing between his thumb and forefinger as Iwaizumi struggles to remove his own boxers, one-handed. Oikawa vocalizes fruitlessly against his palm, clipped and stifled.

He manages, and takes his hand away from Oikawa, who gasps for breath in the most titillating way he could have managed, inhaling and exhaling in a way that shakes his entire upper body. He runs his tongue over his upper lip, stimulated.

Naked, now, with the only other man in the universe, Iwaizumi sinks his teeth into the apple in their poor facsimile of the Garden of Eden.

Everything is different than how he was with Eri. The invigoration, the sweaty skin beneath him, the pleasure, burning and carnivorous enough to set the entire room ablaze that begs relentlessly for total realization in every cell of his body; this is _nothing_ like how he feels with the woman he’s spent years with.

And that’s a good thing. He barely has time to think, all he has is what he feels below him -- every line, every gold, every muscle.

Oikawa reaches around, high on the moment, and produces a small bottle, which he tosses at Iwaizumi. Clumsily (he has never been worked up to this much of a fervor before), he prepares himself.

“Iwa-- Hajime, _please_ ," begs Oikawa, echoing Iwaizumi’s own thoughts, the grip on his shoulders firm enough that it would still persist even if he were to fade away to dust, legs wrapped around his back. “Take me, ruin me, whatever, just-- I’m safe, if you want a con--”

_I’m about to have sex with Oikawa._

Obviously, he knows that -- how could he not -- but that single, clear realization rocks him all the same. He wants this, by God does he want this, but Eri’s kind, smiling face forces its way through his mind, fogged with arousal, and he pulls back, burned by the very passion that drove him.

Everything Oikawa had described, he desires it, too, more deeply and urgently than he had ever known. To be inside of him. To hold him down. To have him scream _his_ name, while he’s in bed with him, not with some random off the street who doesn’t even _fucking deserve him anyway._

Why can’t he be easy?

Why did Iwaizumi Hajime have to fall for the impossible?

“Unfortunately, that’s not enough.”

He pulls away. Frozen for a heartbeat, Oikawa blinks up at him, confused. He can’t bear to look at that face. He moves to the side of the bed, cold, naked, and irrationally upset with himself. He breathes raggedly. “I’m engaged.”

“What?” Iwaizumi flinches at how lost he sounds.

“I’m _engaged._ "

The mattress creaks and dips as Oikawa shifts over to him. He paws at Iwaizumi’s shoulder, hands damp and limp. They go to his bicep, and he tries to tug him down. “Fuck her. No, no, fuck _me._ ”

The feeble plea doesn’t fit him.

“I can’t--”

“Break up with her. Break off the engagement. Stay, _please._ "

His grip tightens and both his whole arms snake around Iwaizumi’s, where he’s left, a shell, holding it tightly. Iwaizumi grits his teeth, feeling soft hair brush his shoulder as Oikawa rests his head there. He puts all he has into that grasp, and Iwaizumi _aches._

“We can’t do this. Not while I’m engaged.”

“Break up with her in the morning!” Oikawa cries, exasperated and desperate. “Who cares if there’s a little overlap?!”

“I care!” Iwaizumi stares down at his exposed form. Here, in the dark, he’s dim, dirtied, ashamed. “She’s perfectly nice--”

" _Ugh,_ I don’t care how nice she is,” Oikawa growls. “I don’t care about her, not right now,” -- presently, he grips harder -- “not while you’re _here, please_ \--”

“It’s not that simple!” shouts Iwaizumi.

“What isn’t?” Oikawa contests.

Iwaizumi’s head droops, and he sighs heavily. He’s dazed, horny, and actively fighting every physical impulse at war with his rational mind. If having sex with Oikawa were that easy, they’d be in the middle of it now. “I can’t just break up with her.” He rubs one temple.

Oikawa lifts himself off of Iwaizumi’s shoulder, and stares into him. He’s exhausted, he’s bubbling with alcohol and discontent, and reproach teems in those once bright brown eyes. Then, slowly, he recoils, folding his arms over his chest.

Iwaizumi is freezing.

“Then what the _fuck_ is this?” he demands.

Hands in pathetic fists, Iwaizumi memorizes the popcorn pattern on the dusky ceiling. “I don’t know,” he answers hollowly.

“Stay.” Oikawa leans in back toward him. “Even if I wasn’t involved, even if I had no part in this, you wouldn’t be happy with her.” He narrows his eyes. “I _know_ you wouldn’t be.”

Iwaizumi doesn’t know what to say in face of the truth. Oikawa finds his shoulder and pulls at him, face a mess, filled with a longing that he, too, shares, but cannot bring himself to act upon. His body rocks back and forth, and finally, he gets up off the bed.

" _Stay._ " Oikawa’s pitiful, and he knows it. “Stay, please,” he wails thinly.

Iwaizumi picks up his boxers and starts to put them back on. “You’re drunk,” he replies flatly.

" _Don’t use me as an excuse,_ " Oikawa fumes, fingers curled around the edge of the mattress.

“When you wake up in the morning, hungover,” Iwaizumi goes on, squinting for his jeans, “you’ll hate me.”

“You should know by now our moral standards are a little different.”

He finds them, and looks back at Oikawa as he pulls the denim up his legs, hiding his skin from the eyes of the sinner’s paradise they’ve crafted. “Not different enough,” he says finally, words more boorish than he intended. “I’m not going to cheat on her.”

_Then what the fuck have I been doing?_

Oikawa glares up at him.

He appears baleful, but there’s distinct sadness that contorts that malevolence, and the angry expression doesn’t fit on the naked man beneath him, drawing the comforter around his lap to cover himself, shaking under the weight of his contradicting emotions. “Fuck,” he curses, quietly, this time, to himself. “Fuck!” On the second, he yells, frayed to the point where he finally snaps, and tears gather in his eyes just as the blanket gathers on his legs.

It hurts to watch. It stings him, a spear through his chest.

“I’m sorry,” Iwaizumi says, voice scarcely a whisper.

“You should be!” Oikawa sobs, broken. “This is so much worse. Here I was, thinking that I could get drunk about the fact that the object of my affection doesn't like me back, but now I know that he does, he just won't be with me.” He rubs at his eyes.

How is Iwaizumi supposed to reply?

“Do you want to get married?” Oikawa questions honestly, nearly vibrating with his misplaced rage. “To her, I mean.”

Iwaizumi regards him evenly, his puffy lips, the bruises down his throat and chest. “No.”

“No?” For being what’s caused the night’s overwhelming tension, Oikawa doesn’t look too overjoyed at the news. “Do you love her? Do you want to spend the rest of your life with her?”

“I _thought_ that was what I wanted.”

Iwaizumi doesn’t even know what he wants anymore, but it certainly isn’t the torrent of feeling raging inside him. Oikawa stares, mutinous.

“What about me?" he asserts. Iwaizumi rounds on him.

"What _about_ you?" 

Oikawa edges over, swinging his legs over the mattress, bringing the comforter -- white, pure, unlike them -- with him. "How do you feel about me?" he asks. Iwaizumi knew that was what was coming, and he wishes, Lord, does he wish, he had an answer that would satisfy the unsatisfiable.

Still, though, he brings his fingers to where Oikawa had marked him, conquered his body with complete disregard for what Eri could _possibly_ think or notice -- boring, she may be, but a fool, she is far from. His exhilaration has yet to fade, and it haunts his muscles with yearning.

"I-- I don't know that, either," is all he can come up with.

Oikawa clicks his tongue.

He begins searching within his sheets, plucks out his underwear, and promptly puts it back on. He sheds his blanket, gets to his feet, and stands at eye level with Iwaizumi, arms akimbo in an attempt at pride.

"I'll give you two options, Iwa-chan," he starts, diffident. "One as your best friend, and one as the man who's wanted you to kiss me like that since the first time I learned what kissing was."

The captainly manner returns to him, more composed now. Confidence always was a better look on him, shirtless or not. "If you want her, if you're happy with her, and if you _love_ her," -- he says _love_ in the same way a person might spit out a fishbone -- "then you should stay with her. Get married. Have annoyingly perfect children, have perfectly satisfactory sex, and grow old together." His eyes flash, here. "That's the best friend option. It's easy, it's what you were going to do a few hours ago before I fucked it up."

The fishbone sits, lodged in Iwaizumi's throat, now. "And my second option?"

Oikawa takes a step closer, and gently, _so fucking gently,_ rests his hands on Iwaizumi, where his neck meets his shoulders. "Stay with me," he murmurs softly. "Here. In my bed. Let me kiss you until I can't think straight anymore, until I don't remember what it's like to sit anywhere other than your lap."

Is this effect Oikawa has on him new, or is this simply the first time he's noticing it?

"Forget about her, and her boring house, and her boring family, and her boring job." His hand dances up, and he smooths a thumb over his cheek. Unknowingly, Iwaizumi leans into his touch. "I may be pretty far from perfect, but I'm not _boring._ "

He lets Oikawa quietly stroke the indecisiveness out of him.

"And I don't know if you love her. I don't know if you love me." He smiles -- Iwaizumi doesn't think he meant to, and it's watery, slight. "But _I_ love _you._ So…" A glance to the painted wall. "Do with that what you will."

Iwaizumi is but a mortal man.

He has flaws, worries, imperfections big and little, like Oikawa. Despite what he said, maybe he's already worse off. He's fucking up everything he thought he wanted, he _already_ fucked it up; the moment he entered this house, he sealed his fate. He closed the book on his and Eri's chapter, opened it to a blank page, a page filled with uncertainties and worries and surprises. He opened it to where Oikawa was waiting.

And that man, that author, that conductor of the strange and spontaneous and unpredictable, loves him.

...That notwithstanding, he has Eri to think of in all of this. Maybe he doesn't love her, not like he thought he did, but he undoubtedly feels _something_ for her. He wouldn't have spent four years of his life with her if that had not been the case. They awake together, she makes breakfast, he makes dinner, and they live in simple, _boring,_ domesticity. But he knows it's _real,_ what they have, knows Eri genuinely loves him, too, cares about him more than he deserves.

Hurting her is the last thing he wants.

It's what he's been doing the whole night.

What the Hell is he supposed to do? What the Hell is he supposed to want? What the Hell have he and Oikawa been _doing_ for the past ten, fifteen, twenty years?

He takes Oikawa's wrist and lowers his hand to their abdomens, where he encloses it with his own. He holds it, there, knowing only its warmth. It's calloused, precise, damp with tears, but it belongs to the man who loves him.

"I love you," he whispers.

He makes his choice.

Oikawa watches this movement with careful, rapt attention. "I don't really believe you," he says.

Iwaizumi blinks. "What?"

"I--" He appears to begin with no real direction of where to take his sentence, because he cuts himself off with a melancholy sigh. "I'm tired, Iwaizumi." He, however, doesn't take away his hand. "I'm tired of this."

Turned into the desperate one, now, Iwaizumi holds Oikawa's hand to his bare chest. "Then what should I do?"

Experimentally, Oikawa flexes his fingers against the hard muscle. "The world is a bit too fuzzy for rational thought right now," he admits.

Iwaizumi waits for Oikawa to move away.

He doesn't.

"I'll give you another option," he says.

"From my best friend or from the man who wants to kiss me?"

"The man who just said another person's name in bed."

Skin to glorious skin, Oikawa hugs him. He wraps his arms around his neck, pulls himself flush, and exhales. "I want to throw up a little when I say this, because I want you to stay so bad it fucking _hurts_ , but you should go home," he acquiesces, words threaded with pain. “Think about it a bit, before you throw your life away.”

Then he shrinks away, crossing his arms. “Besides, like you said: I’m drunk, and it’s two in the morning.”

Iwaizumi really, _really_ doesn’t want to leave him alone. Not now. And certainly not like this.

“Is Sugawara still coming over?” he asks. He needs to know.

“Probably. I’ll call him.” Oikawa shrugs, and then smirks. “Make sure I don’t choke on my own vomit.”

He brushes past Iwaizumi -- probably to go fetch his sweater -- and pauses at the doorframe. He leans, there, and screws up his neck, looking back into paradise lost. “Think about it. All of it.” He lowers his chin, gazing through his eyelashes, one knee popping up. “Getting married. Me. Everything you can think of. Make a fucking _pros and cons list,_ I don’t care what you do.” He pauses. “Make a decision. Deal with the consequences.”

Iwaizumi follows him into the living room. “What happens if I pick you?”

That draws a dry chuckle from Oikawa. “I send a nice bouquet to your ex-fiancée and you don't look back.”

“What happens if I pick her?”

Oikawa stoops, thoughtful, to pick up his too-big sweater. He tosses Iwaizumi his own shirt. “I’ll hate you for a little bit, probably.” He pulls the sweater over his head, and when it settles, his hair is even more messed up than it once was. “Then I’ll get over it. I’ll choke on my own vomit a little, maybe.” He watches, unimpressed, as Iwaizumi puts his shirt on. “I won’t die, though.”

He goes to the end table where his whiskey rests. After a moment’s hesitation, he grabs the bottle, and takes the glass from the opposite table, disappears into his kitchen, and returns, empty-handed. “You weren’t an option before, you won’t be an option again.” He claps Iwaizumi on the shoulder and leads him to the genkan. “I’ll pretend this was some whiskey induced dream.”

Iwaizumi slips on his shoes and jacket, and Oikawa hovers above him. “Okay,” he replies.

As he stands back up, Oikawa meets his gaze, and the static electricity turns his brain to mush. “Okay?”

If he didn’t have his answer before, when he showed up here, when he kissed Oikawa, when he was moments away from being inside him, he has his answer now, only having the strength to stare, numbly, at his lips. They’re not black and blue yet; perhaps one day, with due diligence, they will be.

_Goddammit._

“Yeah. Okay.”

**Author's Note:**

> notes from @ o_a: she wrote this after watching an angst headcanon video on tiktok set to the song "heather" by conan gray. she has not listened to the whole song, nor did she finish the video, she simply opened up her google docs and blacked out for an hour. also, she wants to hear what she should write for a part two: a) iwaizumi getting married and having oikawa get revenge that ends with them fucking until iwaizumi gets it through his head that he's in love with oikawa, or b) iwaizumi has to confess his love to a sober oikawa after a week of leaving him on radio silence, and the aftermath  
> notes from me: i refuse to disclose how much of this i wrote listening to macklemore's thrift shop on repeat. you're all going to horny jail, of which o_a is the warden and i am a model prisoner. i'm here on false charges. let me out. also, she's a ledge for messaging me about this while in the middle of a zoom class for uni. we're responsible students  
> (and on the bibilical allusions: i dunno, chief, i'm not religious. something is rising but it sure ain't jesus. also, i like option b)


End file.
